TCHQ Communications Marketing & PR

09/09/2026

A friend of mine is job hunting. He sent me a cover letter last week that ran three full pages.

Clean sentences, no typos, confident all the way through. It never told the employer how he would help them.

The AI did not fail him. It gave him exactly what he asked for.

These tools get tuned on human ratings, and people score agreement higher than pushback. Then your question tips it further. "Does this sound strong?" already says which answer you want.

Our new article covers how to ask so that agreeing with you means arguing with you. https://tchqcommunications.com/ai-for-business-how-to-get-an-honest-answer/

09/08/2026

Nobody clicks a billboard. That's the usual objection to out-of-home advertising, and it's fair.

Repetition is what you're buying. Same drive, same intersection, same message, five days a week.

The businesses that get burned skip the tracking. No dedicated landing page, no unique phone number, no eye on branded search.

Then they call the whole thing a waste.

The ones that win keep the message to five words. They run 8 to 12 weeks minimum. They buy boards where their customers already drive.

Our new article covers when a billboard pays off and when it torches your budget.

Digital ads get all the attention over billboard and transit advertising because they’re clickable, trackable, and instantly adjustable.

09/07/2026

Five things shifted in social media last week, and together they tell one story: effort is moving from production to intent.

Raw, low-polish video outperformed glossy campaigns again. Captions took over the job hashtags used to do, with 67% of Gen Z now searching on Instagram and 62% on TikTok. LinkedIn published guidance on getting content cited by AI chatbots, and long-form is winning that race. Disney and TikTok opened licensed Pixar, Marvel, and Star Wars clips to eligible creators. Saves, shares, and dwell time kept pulling ahead of raw follower counts, with TikTok engagement at 3.70% versus Instagram's 0.48%.

None of that requires a bigger budget. Most of it requires a clearer point.

What is the one thing you would change about your content plan if follower count stopped mattering entirely?

09/04/2026

A new logo is not a rebrand. It's the easiest part of one.

Your brand is every signal that tells people who you are, what you do, and why they should trust you. The website. The email template. The proposal deck. The way your social bio and your website describe the same company two different ways.

Here's the thing about mixed signals. They cost you money even when the work is excellent, because inconsistency reads as risk.

New article covers the six signs it's actually time, and a seven step rollout that doesn't leave you half rebranded for eight months.

Rebranding or branding is not just about a logo. It is the set of signals that tell people who you are, what you do, and why they should trust you.

09/02/2026

Traffic's down, and everyone wants to blame the algorithm.

Here's the thing: it's usually your load time. 53% of mobile visitors abandon a page that takes longer than three seconds. They don't complain. They don't email you. They just leave, and you never find out why.

The same goes for a site that's a pain to use with one thumb in a parking lot.

Two fixes, zero conspiracy theories required. Read more in the comments.

09/01/2026

08/31/2026

A quick read on the week of August 24-30 in social.

LinkedIn began letting users privately flag posts that feel machine-written. Instagram let creators swap audio on already published posts without losing likes or comments. TikTok made its newest AI video model available to advertisers for longer, more ambitious ad storytelling. At the same time, a single-take truck driver lip-sync racked up 336 million views with no production value at all.

The numbers underneath it are just as blunt. TikTok is averaging 2.80% engagement per post while Instagram Reels sits at 0.65% and YouTube Shorts at 0.30%, and short-form video now accounts for 58% of the time people spend on social.

Better tools everywhere, and the roughest clip on the feed still won the week.

If you had to pick one for next quarter, would you invest in production quality or post more often?

08/31/2026

Every week brings a new must-try platform, a new AI tool, a trending format that somebody swears is the thing now.

Here's the thing: novelty feels like progress. Starting a TikTok series, rebuilding the website again, switching your messaging every quarter. That's motion, and motion looks a lot like momentum until you check the results.

Pulling this one back out of the archive. Most small businesses don't need more tactics. They need one clear offer, one audience they serve best, two channels they actually commit to, and a weekly rhythm they can keep.

If your marketing only happens when someone feels inspired, has spare time, or gets nervous about sales, that isn't a strategy. It's a stress response.

Simplicity isn't doing less. It's doing less randomly.

Read more in the comments.

08/30/2026

My sweet baby girl.

08/30/2026

Rocky Horror has been playing in theaters for 50 years, and the studio designed exactly none of the part that made it last.

The costumes, the call-backs, the props, the shadow casts, all of that came from the audience. Nobody mandated it. Then the regulars started teaching newcomers the moves, which is the part most brands would kill for.

That's the line between customers who like you and customers who identify with you. One waits for a sale. The other one brings friends.

Good piece from Inc. on what that actually looks like for a business. The question is not what will excite people enough to buy. It's what your customers get to become by showing up.